Archive for Tag ‘Nashville‘

Very quietly and surreptitiously did Andy Ferro, guitarist and occasional vocalist for Ranch Ghost, slide out a modest, self-recorded batch of songs this winter. The details are scant, but over beignets this last Fat Tuesday, Ferro made something along the lines of comment about how the songs come from a place of Tea and optimism and not Red Wine and pith…whatever that means. It sounds to everyone else like the dude just held himself hostage for a season and put his nose to the grindstone and we are looking at the residuals.

The tunes are simple, well-written, and contain a British sensibility that tongues with the American “blues”- a style that is becoming a sort-of calling card of Mr. Ferro’s.

Birth your own babies and let this collection of jams hold you over until that Ranch Ghost record finally sees the light of day.

It is on the night after the death of the great Pete Seeger and upon streaming Henry Mancini’s “Best Of” that I write this.

The duel purpose with which the occasion compels me to jostle my thoughts down can also be revealed in the opening sentence. I awoke this morning to read of the news that Pete Seeger – the legendary folk singer and activist – had died peacefully at the age of 94. This is the first monolithic musical figure that has passed this year, but in 2013 the world lost Lou Reed, Donald Byrd, Phil Everly and Ray Price, to name the smallest amount. All major figures, both in the music community and in the popular landscape as well. But none illicit nearly as much of a reaction from me as Pete Seeger’s death did. My initial thought was that stating he died peacefully seemed a bit ill-fitting, given that the current climate in which we live (double meaning intended) can hardly be navigated in a “peaceful” manner. As such, Mr. Seeger appeared to gracefully let go of the torch he (once) carried, while still maintaining his fervor for life. Either that or he probably asked himself every day upon waking, “are you fucking kidding me?”

My next thought immediately went to the onslaughts of tributes that were about to be poured out for the righteous man. A mental rolodex began to spin of all the people who claimed Seeger as inspiration or in his lineage: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, etc. etc. and I vowed to skim everyone of them with a dull-attention span and to not go and do likewise. In fact, en route to my relatively yuppie job bar-tending at a locally-sourced burger joint (where I also am in charge of the music during the shift), I said to myself that I wouldn’t so much as even mention his passing to anyone and would play only a few of his tracks – exclusively deep cuts – as I queued up whatever jams for that morning shift. Yet here I am. Human beings are fickle, malleable beasts.

Black tooth went in a black hole and at the end of it, the only thing to show for it is a blast beat of new material from the ever-grindin’ever-shinin’ Jota Ese.

Having done the heavily lifting necessary for you all, I’ll say that you should listen to all of the new below. All of it is classic Ese, save the new and evolving production tricks he’s taking himself to. However, there are a few stand outs: in particular DAUNI JUNT ’70 album/mix and the track “Keepin’ It Classic” from the SoundCloud. (It’s about time that Jota met the Rockers uptown, but DAUNI takes care of that.) He also cranked out a video project alongside the artist Human Man, which is worth the watch as well (embed it, I will). Word is dude’s got a new album dropping next week. New year, same refrain: dude works harder than you.

They want to sound like they promised their daddies they’d make it for them and damn if they didn’t nail it. Promised Land Sound’s debut album comes out today via Paradise of Bachelors and we remember when they played their first show way back when at our Summer Party…they were just innocent little Promised Land then. Free of legal issues and way worse at their instruments. Now look at ‘em, all boutique and high and ripping sweet licks and singing. D/L a track by them at the bottom because they can jam.

Record done at the Bomb Shelter by Andrija Tokic and Jem Cohen and that’s all. The release show is this Saturday – 9/28 – at Jem and co.’s Found Object with label mate Steve Gunn and Weekend Babes.

FYI: Guitarist Sean Thompson played lead on the Blacktooth Release of TV John – The Dream Man.

In what is no doubt a shrewd business move, Chris Murray – musician, artist, writer, liar, and overall good dude – has started a recycled tape label with all the right threads and frills attached to it.

Check it out. We half-assedly support it, and it has Murray’s latest project, Textbook Punk, fully stocked, which is as it should be. Featuring music that mostly will blow your space balls out of your perception holes, TBP offers a tiny corner of the great expansive music world that Nashville lacks in its entirety, primarily due to over compensation via Metro-Masculinity. There is no throw back.

Note: TBP04 or: Jerkwater Burg was an original Blacktooth CD-R release (BTR011) from our art installation in The Arcade last summer, available on tape for the first time. Read Murray’s summation of it below and the initial press-festo here: <click!>

“Jerkwater Burg” is a cassette re-issue of the sound component of an art installation of the same name, originally released as a tiny batch of CD-Rs by Blacktooth Records, all of which sold out at the show’s opening on November 3, 2012. “JWB” was a collaborative project, helmed by Matt Jernigan (M.F.A., School of the Art Academy of Chicago.)

As one of the only truly immersive installations ever presented at Nashville’s First Saturday Art Crawl, “JWB” featured a sod-covered ramp, surrounded by flourescent floor lights and leading to a fountain which sprayed a glowing green liquid. Jagged black and white stripes adorned the walls of the tiny room and to call the experience “psychedelic” would be putting it lightly.

The music, or rather, sound contained on this cassette is the static, gurgling effects broadcast over loudspeakers throughout the opening. Whether it reminds you of a New England bay or PC alert messages, it makes a rather nice “light noise” soundtrack for your next meditation session, dinner party or acid trip. Dubbed on “Tomorrow’s News – Today” C60s. Limited to four copies.

August 30th at The Basement here on the home turf of Nashville, TN will be tight night. We’re proud to present it. The illustrious poster above was made by the hero Ricardo Alessio (site) and will be screen printed and made into different colors for sale at the show. Limited edish.

You get a lot of listening and a lot of taking when you sit down with awesome women and ask them about music. I did just that the other night with some of the finest in town. (Full disclosure: all close friends, one lover, and I’ve played – currently or in the past – for all of them.)

The impetus for the conversation stemmed from a desire to hear what ladies I knew had to say about music. The in/equality, the un/fairness, and the sweet, fun aspects of it. I wanted to have a more robust understanding of it all, to get some knowledge dropped on me, which is precisely what happened. The content ranged from the wildly unpredictable to what you would expect. But it’s all fantastic. These are sharp ladies with surfeit knowledge about a razor thin subject and they do it all gracefully. In addition to what’s below, we also hit on Laurie Anderson, Janet Weiss/Sleater-Kinney, Carol Kaye, Lower Dens/Dirty Projectors, Tina Weymouth, and Madonna (they were all torn as to the opinion on her). It was a great chat, one that caused genuflection, and I’d like to share with it with you all.

These ladies are all at different points as to how they engage with music, thus the interesting fodder. You can download/listen to a track by each of them and their bands – as well as links/additional info – after the jump (click the German below).

The evening of November 3, Open Gallery – here in Nashville – will play host to an environment built up of corporeal experience. ‘Jerkwater Burg’ is the collaboration of Nashville artists, under the guise of Blacktooth Records (in the archival sense), who work in varying mediums, combining their abilities in order to manipulate multiple senses with the hope of wholly influencing and enhancing the physiological, psychological, and emotional state of its audience. It is not a gallery showcase, but a temporary hyper-reality, designed to encourage its inhabitants to feel something new, something strange.

In ‘Jerkwater Burg’ an attempt is made to house an environment not unlike what Alan Watts described as, “the experiencer and the experience becoming a single, ever-changing, self-forming process,” one where the situation is familiar – semiotically, artistically, etc. – but unlike the unification of the place and person, we desire a slight discomfort with what we call the Arpeggio of Meaning while still holding belief in the singular experience. Magical. Curious. Off-putting. Inviting. A kind of forcing of an unconscious suspension of disbelief.

Our idle frustration with our own inability to project a concrete meaning on experiences is fascinating to us, and in our current age we think that many others feel the same. Perhaps it is that these affects exist entirely outside of logistics. We invite you to explore ‘Jerkwater Burg’.

You may accidentally find yourself in the middle of Jihad or adorning yourself with Mimosa in the springtime. Perhaps you’ll discover your lover to be too coquettish in this space, or that all your friends are a pale mutiny of dispossessed voidoids hatched in a misty somewhere between fictive and mundane. And we know you’ll want to help – we do too, that’s the idea – but we can’t help, and we view all these attempts at meaning as banging your head against a wall: it’s nice when it stops.

The more unsure we are of the exact spacial provence we’re inhabiting, the further into the liminal hinterland we go. You have to know it feelingly in these ugly, mystifying times and the last thing we want to do is rest on our laurels when it comes to this slug we’re trying to salt.

Jota Ese will soon be crowned a little bit, perhaps noticed a little bit, maybe even take more shots of Tequila in a little bit, but suffice it to say – no matter what bit drops – he don’t stop. I don’t even know how many records the dude’s put out at this point, but I think I’ve heard them all. Most of them at least. I’m trying to pad my rep before I blast this record, nawmean?

Regardless, he put this one out at the perfect time. And that could mean a few things. Perfect time as in: The Mayan 2012 end-o’-the-world hasn’t happened, so that’s good timing. It could also mean in regards to the weather: Summer-bikini-babe-club-jams are out, smooth, break-you-open-with-a-thimble tunes are cropping back into rotation. It could also mean that the unspoken needed to be spoken and I’ll be damned if I saw it coming from this guy.

I won’t focus on the mildly-provocative title, because odds are it doesn’t matter to you. Make it abstract and you’ve got it. Musically, Jota just straight nails it on this one. You have everything that he’s been stirring together in his lounted pot for a long time, all finally marinating with each other and all the spices and herbs. You’ve got that jazz, the jive, the poetry – as Doodlebug would say. You got the psych-out freak-out, you’ve got the beats, the lows and the highs. You’ve got Bob James for heaven’s sake. It’s erudite and edgy. It’s full of late night groove juice and poppin’ off commentary (quietly). The video that goes along with it is well worth the watch. It’s good. Jota Ese’s good. I’m beginning to wonder if, like the album’s opening sample, he didn’t find some crossroads off of Dickerson where the green grass grows. Maybe he met the album’s Miss there.